Saturday, September 18, 2010

I have spoken to and met some lovely people since starting this Blog and received a few gifts along the way too. One of these gifts came the other week in the form of a book written by fellow History nut and blogger, Andrew Bronzyna. Andrew very kindly sent me his latest publication which tells the story of his Grandfather and his time spent in the Port battalions, US Army Transportation Corps, serving through England, Normandy and Antwerp. Thank you Andrew I look forward to reading this in the future, It was very kind of you .

I myself have seen something of a little press this week with the release of a new quiz book from Osprey. You may remember a while back I was approached by Osprey about my Blog illustrations, well a deal was struck and here they are in print. I can proudly say that now I can join my heroes Angus MC Bride and Peter Dennis under the Osprey banner...well almost I suppose.

On passing a book stall in London, I happened upon these two childhood classics. I remembered copying the illustrations from these Ladybird books as a kid, you could say It's where I got a taste for drawing battles. So In many ways I owe a lot to these old ladybird books.Although I do think that since 1959, when the book was published, our knowledge of the Roman world has grown slightly. They are full of the most amazing, atmospheric paintings though that seem to have a kind of warmth and magic about them, or maybe it's just my own memories affecting my judgement. A great find all the same and they will take pride of place on my book shelf.

This young hot head is part of the 4th Texas Cavalry. He normally prefers a shotgun to his regulation sabre in the cut and thrust of melee, but just to play safe, he packs both. Picket duty sucks, mind you, a good Gum blanket can ease matters.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

I treated myself to some new products from Silflor, namely some clumps of weeds. These are basically tufts with tiny leaves stuck on. They had sold out of the spring time ones I wanted, so I bought the Summer time ones and gave them a brown Ink wash, just to knock them back a bit. I quite like them and they look good on the bases. I see that Army painter are releasing more and more grass tufts, I think It's only a matter of time before they bring out weed clumps.